Art & Nature and Technology

Nature and technology, at least to me, are both synonymous with science. I have been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between art and science. Perhaps this because I don't want to think that I have wasted a good portion of my life. People are constantly surprised by a move from science to fine arts, which I've always found strange because to me the two are not exactly irreconcilable. The artist-scientist is even a Jungian archetype, though I've never gotten that into Jung. I think that both fields require a curiosity, patience and creative thinking, and it helps for both if you're not a total idiot. Science is logical and I find that art that I admire always has a logic to it. Even a work like Chris Burden's Velvet Water has some kind of inherent logic to it. It's disturbing, but it makes sense in a way that's hard to explain.

I remember reading something a while ago. I don't remember the writer but they were talking about Cremaster Cycle and basically what they said was that you can pick up any copy of Nature or DNA and find more "art about biology" than in any of Barney's blockbuster productions. I guess you can tell I'm no Barney fan (though I do admire some of his drawing restraint stuff). Theo Jansen (who Rosie wrote about) is to me an artist who works within the spirit of science. Or Matta-Clarke, who I was talking about the other day, or Yves Klein. Because, science, as a discipline, isn't self indulgent. (Though its applications can be devastatingly, monumentally destructive). Science, whether it's to do with thermobacteria, or geology, or astrophysics (to use the cliched example) is something beyond ourselves, something bigger. And art can be the same.

And Back to my essay..

The Raw and the Cooked

Imogen

art & technology & nature- Mark Handforth

Mark Handforth's work main media comprises of fluorescent light sculpture installations and found objects. He inserts familiar objects into unfamiliar surroundings, focusing on the decay and use of those objects in a consumer world.
'Lamppost' 2003 depicts a lamppost that has been stretched and folded in upon itself resembling a piece of modern sculpture, that although disconcerting maintains it's original purpose as the glowing red bulbs lights up the public area in which it's placed.
Sorry i couldn't post the picture - www.publicartfund.org/.../03/handforth_s03.html

Fiona Hall- Fern Garden

ART, NATURE AND TECHNOLOGY

Fiona hall was commissioned to make a work for the sculpture garden at the National Gallery (Canberra) which began construction in 1998. 58 mature Dicksonia antarctica tree ferns were planted which were said to be at least 200 years old. The garden is spiral shaped and based on a fern frond, which is said to be a symbol of healing and rejuvenation. One enters the garden through a wrought steel gate which is said to be a representation of the female reproductive system. Dicksonia antarctica are found along the east coast of Australia and Tasmania. As they are so old they have withstood the arrival of the white man to the country and the disappearance of the aboriginal peoples.

'Fiona Hall sees gardens as being, essentially, about the relationship between the body and the natural world, and that the use of space in the world through architecture and gardens is a history of how people relate to the world around them at the most fundamental level.'
Rebecca Corbell, 'A discussion with Fiona Hall', artonview, summer 1997–98

Information and picture derived from : http://nga.gov.au/sculpturegarden/fern.cfm

Art, Technology and Nature - Lionel Bawden

Lionel Bawden

an Australian artist born 1974.

"Brain coral focuses on the incredible complexity of the human brain and the idea that technology is driven by the human sense of enquiry. In our technologically advanced age, focusing on the pencil as a form of technology might seem rather backward. But the notion of the pencil and its purpose – to communicate, to work out solutions, and to create – are essential to the general drive of technology. Most of the magic of technology is in our thinking. The poetry of technology is in our minds before it is in the world. We just have to keep coming up with new ways to extend these thoughts into the physical world and keep evolving our environment." - Lionel Bawden
Through his work "Brain coral" Bawden links the natural process of thought with the seemingly unnaturality of technology. The work is made up of a series of coloured pencils glued together and sanded down into the coral shape. Bawden states that the importance of pencils as a medium lies in the use of the pencil as a technology to create solutions to natures 'problems' or limitations.

Art + Nature + Technology

Dan Flavin was my chosen artist for the recent theory essay, as I feel he fits comfortably in within this week's topic, having comprised the entirety of his works using only fluorescent light tubes and electricity (notably, his works also have strong links to Art and the Quotidian Object). The following is derived from my review of three of his works;

Having first exhibited his works in 1961, Flavin continued exhibiting until the year of his death in 1996. The use of commercial fluorescent light tubes, their meticulous placement within the gallery space and the function of the viewer respectively characterise Flavin’s work. Flavin’s exclusive use of fluorescent light tubes commenced early in his professional career in May, 1963; his diagonal placement of a singular tube upon a studio wall, became a powerful catalyst for his works to come. Drawing from only a limited colour palette and pre-set tubular lengths, Flavin consistently created unique work by formulating different compositions and colour collectives, utilizing the specific architectural structure of each new building in which he exhibited.

Art & Nature and Technology - Rebecca Horn

Rebecca HORN
Rebecca Horn is a contemporary German artist, who uses a combination of media including video, performance, installation and sculpture. Horn relates to art & nature and technology, as she has essentially developed her technique using machines and motorized sculptures in her works which relate directly to nature. With the aid of these machines, it has become an important feature of mimicking the natural world and as such “plays on our fears of human becoming overly machine like” - Eleanor Heartney. As seen in the images, Horn has “developed” her practice over the past decade due to the ever-evolving use of the phenomenon of technology.

Horn’s early works consisted of designs and structures for representation of both the human body and natural formation of animals. In her early performances she only used these “body extension instruments” to explore the connection between humanity and animal existence. Later in her career, however, Horn began to use machines in her works, which allowed her to display recognizable human gestures and characteristics in other living forms. This connection not only intersected between humans and animals, but had given the two a shared form in which they could co-exist, as seen in “Twin of the Crow".

Rebecca Horn, Twin of the Crow, 1997.
Crow feathers, metal construction, motor, dimensions variable. Centro Cultural de Belem. Lisbon, Portugal.

However, in Horns recent works, she has discarded her use of the human body all together and is working primarily with machines to replace human presence with kinetic sculptures which take on their own life, as seen in “Butterfly Sculpture”. Horn has conducted a multi-layer of nature, culture and technology to mimic nature’s creations and as such highlights the similarities and unity of the two living systems. “The dynamic and fluid movement of the performers bodies in her earlier performances is replaced by the very slight rhythmic movements and extremely precise mechanised functions of her sculptures” – Sven knudsen

Rebecca Horn, Butterfly Sculpture, 2002.
Metal construction, motor, dimensions variable.
Galerie Jamileh Weber. Zurich, Switzerland (22.09.02 - 11.10.02).

Even more recently, Horn’s inclusion of light, music and mirrors as seen in “Moon Mirror” have become a resonance with technology, evolving with new equipment and are the pinnacle for Horns most technological involved works.

Rebecca Horn, Moon Mirror, 2005.
Mixed Media, dimensions variable.
St Paul's Cathedral, London (27.06.05 – 13.07.05).

Bibliography

Books:

Abbott, Jan. Rebecca Horn Time Goes By. Edition Cantz: Germany, 1993.

A. T, Elizabeth. Rebecca Horn Diving through Busters bedroom. Los Angeles, museum of contemporary art, 1990.

Festpiele, Berliner. Rebecca Horn drawings, sculptures, installations, films 1964 – 2006. Hatje Cantz: London, 2007.

Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008.

Stooss, Tino. Rebecca Horn Zurich. Germany publishers: Germany, 1983.


Images/Websites:

Twin of the Crow, http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue73/8150 (accessed 14.05.09)

Butterfly Sculpture, http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://images.artnet.com/ (accessed 14.05.09)

Moon Mirror, http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/assets/wysiwyg/hayward/art_on_site/horn3.jpg (accessed 15.05.09)

Art, nature & technology

LEONADO DA VINCI, YVONNE RAINER & GEORGE ORWELL

Firstly, i believe one cannot speak of art and technology without making mention to the renaissance man himself, Leonardo Da Vinci, as i'm sure everyone is very well aware, da Vinci's ar went far beyond the paintings he created, his idea's, theories and philosohies in relation to sience and technology saw perhaps the first images of what could be very plausable flying machines (now helicopters) deconsructions of the human form, and all matter of experimentation that demonstrated a mind well beyon the time and reaching into the future of technological advances.

The artist i would like to make mention of in this weeks topic however, is Yvonne Rainer, an avant garde artist whose beginings where in dance ( as mentioned in art & today) her involvment with art and technologhy spawned in her dance/ performace melding the movements of the body and incorperating what could be seen as 'accidental' tripping of wires to create light and audio experiences within the works, since these beginings Rainer has branched out into film which encompase subjects such as feminsim, narrative, identity and spirituality.

Whislt on the matter of art, nature and technology, i must make mention of George Orwell's novel 'Animal Farm', (perhaps some of you had to read this at school?) this novel has those very aspects of doomsday mimicry which Heartly speaks of in art & today, representing human characteristics in an analogy of animal instincts this novel speaks to an encompasing utopian ideal, representative of the russian revolution.

.....And just incase, i was speaking to my dad earlier on tonight ( checking out the exhibition posts - thanks hayley) so if you get round to checking in out .. HI DEDDY!!! heh heh!

Yuken Teruya- Art & Nature & Technology

Yuken Teruya is a Japanese artist. His works are very intricate and beautiful replicas of nature and he tends to use man made discarded objects for his materials. For example Notice- Forest above is a tiny tree cutout folded down from a McDonald's bag. He has also used toilet rolls newspapers and novels and brought them to life in a similar way.

“By linking organic forms from nature with artificially designed ones their importance is reversed and each takes on an entirely different set of values." Yuken Teruya (http://www.yukenteruyastudio.com/en/projects/dawn)

http://www.yukenteruyastudio.com/

NATURE AND TECHNOLOGY

Jimmie Durham, Still life with car and stone, 2004 Installation: Car, granite rock, paint, Dimensions variable.

Nature and Technology

At Walsh Bay, in the centre of the roundabout is the sculpture by Jimmie Durham, called Still Life with Stone and Car. This piece was exhibited at the 2004 Sydney Biennale. Durham, an American artist, created this artwork by dropping a stone from a crane onto a sedan.

Here is a comment from an observer- which I think sums up this artwork’s relation to this weeks topic.

“It was a performance and an installation, this work reflects the play between nature and culture, technology and organic matter, as well as human life and monumental architecture. This work both explores and questions how familiar objects can be transformed into 'history'.”

This is what Durham had to say about his work, "Like most of my recent work, this piece is concerned with monuments and monumentality, but also with 'nature'; that implacable hard stuff. In the first instance I am using the stone as a tool; to change the shape of an object. But I also, as usual, want to make stone more light, more moveable, even if it is in a fairly horrible way - like a road accident. I do not think the piece is humorous; even though it turns out to be. The kind of face painted on the real version will, of course, depend upon the shape of the stone, but it will in any case be placid, and neither 'realistic' nor cartoon-like. To my way of thinking if the stone is simply a stone without a face it becomes a gesture but with the face painted on it, the work develops a strange narrative. "

Art and nature and technolgy - Patricia Piccinini

Patricia Piccinini primarily works with video, computer manipulation, digital media and sculpture in order to challenge subject matter in the exploration and interpretation of the 21st century world.

Patricia Piccinini’s relates to this area most significantly as her works are founded upon the blurred distinction between nature and technology, the artificial and the natural. This persistent theme is created through the materials and technologies this artist employs. These aesthetics used by the artist has been said to be what makes her work so compelling, as she is able to develop an ethical position on the changing definitions of life and nature in our growing technological world (Millner 2001). As seen through the works below Piccinini takes many ethical standpoints on a variety of issues. The artist has been said to be interested in the many ways that society confronts ethical issues surrounding technological intervention (Piccinini, 1999). Piccinini’s work touches on Eleanor Heartney’s ideas of ethics and identity, with human kinds desires to intervene with nature raises questions of “what it means to be human? Is there a point where human kind will no longer exist?” (Heartney p. 187)

Ultimately, Piccinini’s works evoke questions about our world; through her investigation of issues such as genetic manipulation and engineering, plastic surgery and technological intervention. This exploration unfolds some very complex issues in her works surrounding these ideas as seen in the works below. Piccinini does not claim to represent the answers to these questions merely to reflect the reality and the truths of our complex time.

Piccinini clearly illustrates in her art that she urges us to bring an attitude of acceptance and love to the creatures of technology and take responsibility as their creators. This love is almost a maternal love of "responsibility, ethical guidance and life- long commitment"(Millner, 2001). This is evident in the work the young family 2002 that explores society’s acceptance of these creatures, the reality of growing human organs in animals.


1. Piccinini, Patricia, The Young Family, 2002. silicone, polyurethane, leather, human hair.


The work Protein Lattice, 1997 highlights many concerns in regard to the ethics of technology. The model and rodent in the photograph both stand as products of nature and technology and Piccinini sees them both as beautiful and freakish (Hennessey, 1997). This work highlights the hopes and desires we place on technology for the future.


2. Piccinini, Patricia, Subset - Red Portrait, 1997 – Protein lattice. Type c colour photograph, 80 × 80cm Edition of 6

Plasticology 1997/2000 addresses the issue of the definition of what society considers natural. This work reiterates how plastic the natural world has become. The connection between the environment and humankind has been blurred and one has become immune to the work of sound effects, television and visual digital manipulation.


3. Piccinini, Patricia, Plasticology, 1997/2000. interactive video installation
57 TV monitors, motion-sensors and computer digital modelling and animation.

Resources

Millner, Jacqueline, “Love in the Time of Intelligent Machines,” Artlink 21, no. 4 (2001), 44, http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/fullText;dn=200200351;res=APAFT (accessed 27 March 2009).
Enburg, Juliana, Retrospectology: the world according to Patricia Piccinini. (Southbank, Vic: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2002), 3.
Hennessey, Peter.” Patricia Piccinini: plastic realist”. Photofile, no.52, Nov 1997: 22-29. http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/ [accessed 17 May 09].
Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today: Phaidon press limited, 2006
PatriciaPiccinini. “Patricia Piccinini”, www.patriciapiccinini.net (accessed May 12, 2009)
Micheal, Linda. “We are family.” www.patriciapiccinini.net (accessed may 12, 2009)
Piccinini, Patricia. “Artist statement.” www.patriciapiccinini.net (accessed may 12, 2009)
Millner, Jacqueline. “Patricia Piccinini: Ethical Aesthetics.” Artlink, (2001), www.patriciapiccinini.net

Image references

1. Piccinini, Patricia, The Young Family, 2002. silicone, polyurethane, leather, human hair. Reproduced from Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/31/Patricia_Piccinini/ (accessed 16 May, 2009)

2. Piccinini, Patricia, Subset - Red Portrait, 1997 – Protein lattice. Type c colour photograph, 80 × 80cm Edition of 6. Reproduced from Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/31/Patricia_Piccinini/ (accessed 16 May, 2009)

3. Piccinini, Patricia, Plasticology, 1997/2000. interactive video installation
57 TV monitors, motion-sensors and computer digital modelling and animation. Reproduced from Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/31/Patricia_Piccinini/ (accessed 16 May, 2009)

Art & Nature & Technology- Roxy Paine

Firstly, i would just like to refer to the movie "Blade Runner" which Heartney mentions in the chapter. If you havent seen this movie you should! Its the perfect example of how nature and technology collide. PLUS Harrison Ford is in it and he is extremely sexy. NOW, onto the art side of things; as i was reading through the chapter, i stumbled upon Roxy Paine. Pains's work struck a cord with me, especially the work "Psilocybe Cubensis Field" 1997. Heartney suggests paine "brings machine-like precision to creating replicas of natural objects." This is completely evident in this art work as Paine created life size fields of poisionous mushrooms, he then places them against a stark white and generic gallery space. I feel this contrast makes the audience appreciate the object to a larger extent, as they can closely observe and note the beauty of the mushroom against the sparce white space of the gallery. So really Paine is enhancing the wonder and mysticism of nature through unnatural means. Yet a darker side is brought out, when we discover the mushrooms are poisionous, showing that the beauty can be decieving.
Paine's works are meant to suggest the dispute of humanities desire of control VS the unpredictability and numinous effect of nature. Inevitably Paine is trying to say that no matter how hard we try we can never control nature; it is completely out of our hands.

Art and Nature and Technology

Andy Goldsworthy is a British installation artist who produces ‘environmentally motivated’ artworks, which are intended to decompose. He uses materials form the environment for example stone, stick, ice and snow, which he collects over a certain period of time. His work explores issues of growth, decay and seasonal cycles. “Although I cannot predict what will happen, any changes will become part of the work. When utterly collapsed and evident only as a line of rubble, it will remain complete and finished." His goal is to understand nature by interacting with it as intimately as possible. Some of his most common works are Cairns. Two of these Cairns were created to represent day becoming night, and night becoming day. Mid-morning of a day during October 1991, Goldsworthy started stacking stones in an egg-shaped cairn six feet tall, to indicate day becoming night. He continued this throughout the day until dusk. The next day, Goldsworthy built another cairn nearby, to signify night becoming day. He began at midnight and worked throughout the night until daybreak. During the process he photographs documents his work, and it is through this documentation that the audience is able to view his work.

The Neuberger Cairn (2001)

Art & Popular Culture/ Quotidian Object/ Representation

Art and Popular Culture – Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is an installation artist whose work ‘challenges the boundaries between art, science and popular culture.’ He explores the notion of human experiences, such as love, life, death, loyalty and betrayal, in his work. However death seems to be the most common theme explored. A tiger shark, a cow and her calf, pharmacy bottles, cigarette butts, medical instruments, butterflies and tropical fish are just a few of the resources Hirst uses to communicate his views of human experiences. He is best known for his ‘Natural History’ works, which reveal animals in a tank of formaldehyde, such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) and Mother and Child Divided (1993). These works raise the fundamental questions relating to the meaning of life and the vulnerability of biological existence. In many of his works during the 1990’s such as The Acquired Inability to Escape (1991) and The Asthmatic Escaped (1992), a human presence is implied through the addition of certain objects, like clothes, cigarettes, ashtrays, and chairs.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

1991

Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution

213 x 518 x 213 cm

Charles Saatchi

Art and the Quotidian Object – Tony Cragg

Tony Cragg is a British artist who is notable for the exploration of various materials such as found and discarded materials and raw matter. His selection of materials establishes the form of which the sculpture takes on. In the 1980’s many of his works included fragments of furniture, household objects, plastic toys etc., which were often chosen depending on their colour, and once laid out on the floor or fixed up to the wall, created forms from everyday life. Cragg says, “I think that objects have the capability to carry valuable information for us, but most objects are made in ways which are irresponsible and manipulative. Irresponsible because people—the makers of this or that—don’t really consider in any metaphysical way the meanings of the objects that they are making; and manipulative because things are made for commercial and power-based reasons.”

Spectrum

1985

Plastic

28x200x300

Art and Representation – Bernd and Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher are an artist couple from Germany who, for the last 40 years, have been photographing industrial architecture. The Becher’s first started in 1959, photographing German industrial buildings which were about to be destroyed. The photos reveal their fascination with the similarity in which some buildings have been designed. Their goal has always been to create images which focus on the industrial structures themselves. The Becher’s photograph these buildings with a large format camera from various angles, but always with an ‘objective’ perspective. The images are placed side by side to invite the viewer to compare each form and design. In Cwmcynon Colliery, Mountain Ash, South Wales, 1966, a mine-head towers over houses in the village. The huge wheels above the steel head-frame are an engineered form. The photographs that these two artists take, document the industrial history. When each structure is demolished, the pictures remain.

Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher

Pitheads 1974

Tate. Purchased 1974© Bernd & Hilla Becher